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A mature, academically advanced child? They should be OK skipping a grade or two.
What happens if your kid is academically advanced but ALSO, athletically advanced? If Little Johnny has future NFL/NBA 1st round draft pick talent.......being skipped ahead could put him at a massive disadvantage. I remember this in school. A surprising number of the football players were born in September - January. This was the same with basketball, track and wrestling as well. The smaller/slighter kids tended to have later birthdays...either spring or summer and were always a bit younger than everyone else in class.
Skipping grades can magnify this discrepancy. The difference between a 12-year old and a 14-year old can be pretty significant, especially among athletes.
Take into account, all of your child's interests and what they might potentially pursue before skipping them.
On a side note.......I think Shaq skipped a grade or two in school but he was also 6'5" at 13-years old, so there's that.
Yeah, I agree with this. It's one more reason I would hold back my daughter if she were a boy with the same birthday. There are real advantages in sports to redshirting, particularly for boys. As a person who was always small for my age and a late bloomer, I fully understand the difficulty of being a behind physically. My daughter is physically gifted. She's in a gymnastics class with 5-6 yos and she's one of the stronger kids. While it would be an advantage in sports, I don't think the pros outweigh the cons.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Quote:
Originally Posted by lhpartridge
It depends on the child. Every one is different. There is a marked difference for boys and girls. Our daughter started a year early and all went well for her, even going away to college at 17. Our son was one of the oldest in his class and even then, he was behind most of his classmates in maturity. They ended up four years apart in school despite only a two year age difference.
I'm sorry it didn't work out well for your son.
I agree with this. In our case, the principal did not believe in skipping kids, but a week into the 2nd grade the teacher had tested our daughter with the end-of year final exams and she got perfect scores. They had a reading specialist come in and tested her at 7th grade level. After skipping 2nd, she did fine, with 4.0 grades throughout and graduated college in the normal 4 years. The only real problem was being a year younger so unable to play soccer with her classmates, and not being able to drive until a year later than her friends.
Of course it always depends on the individual, but in my case I really wish that instead of starting first grade at 5 years 11 months, I had started at 6 years 11 months. I was intellectually more than ready, but not so emotionally, socially, or physically. Being the smallest weakest boy without good social skills is a recipe for some very difficult school years, and I had them.
When you're 11 y/o and starting college, will you be included in those fraternity parties and panty raids like your classmates?
Let kids be kids....If the kid is relying on school to teach him something, he isn't adequately motivated anyway.
In regards the OP-- holding a kid back or pushing him ahead in compliance with age rules for first grade is not the same as "skipping a grade." ...While a couple months may make a difference in intellectual developmenal progress at age 5 or 6, or at 11-14 behaviorally/emotionally, it shouldn't be noticeable at age 17 or 18.
For those of you considering accelerating your kid in school, I strongly encourage you not to. Parents who try to rush their kids may ultimately end up setting their kids behind. Unfortunately, my S/O and I fell into this very trap and we learned this lesson the hard way. Our son was born in the last week of December in 1998. Our state had a calendar cut-off, which meant we were allowed to send him to Kindergarten in 2003 at 4, which we did, putting him in the graduating class of 2016. Technically, we didn't grade-skip him, but since most states wouldn't have allowed him to start until 2004, we would have had to grade-skip him in order for him to be in the class of 2016. He was fine until he started college at 17. He had a much harder time adjusting to college than his older classmates, and as a result, dropped out after 1 semester. He enrolled at a community college the following fall, where we were hoping he would be able to transfer back to a university after 2 years. Unfortunately, he didn't get great advisement while at community college, and ended up taking 3 years to transfer instead of 2. He's now a 23-year-old senior, set to graduate this spring. However, if we had given him another year before Kindergarten, college would've probably gone smoothly for him and he probably would have graduated last spring. Trying to rush our son caused him to ultimately take longer to graduate from college.
You cannot know how things might have worked out if you had kept him back a year. I started college at age 17. I made it through four years and graduated. Possibly I would have benefitted from a late kindergarten start. But there is no knowing for sure.
IMO, it would be OK for a kid to take a break after HS and do work or volunteering during their “gap year.” People will have long career years ahead of them. A year off before resuming studies might be a good idea especially in cases of a younger HS graduate. But one never can know the “might have beens.”
A mature, academically advanced child? They should be OK skipping a grade or two.
I think there are a lot of kids that academically could hack it; possibly as many as 25% depending on the school, and a percentage of those can handle it from a maturity standpoint, but SHOULD you do it?
I'll be honest, I think a lot of parents do it for their own egos. Or, they emphasize the importance of academics in their home and therefore misplace value in it for purposes of academic advancement. It really doesn't matter when the kid is applying for college if they skipped a grade 11 years ago (or if they were held back.)
I always have to wonder, "to what end?" At least where I went to grade school they identified really bright kids and they got more rigorous instruction in a few subjects (math, English/lit, maybe science.)
In my moms day there were 2 levels to each grade and there were two promotions a year. She was moved ahead twice, half a year each time, in her elementary years and graduated HS right around the time she turned 17.
Not to mention, I don’t think maturity is linear. The kid that’s mature enough in elementary school might not be as a 14 year old sophomore in high school.
When you're 11 y/o and starting college, will you be included in those fraternity parties and panty raids like your classmates?
News flash: a LOT of students aren't interested in frat parties, and panty raids were left back in the 50's, where they belong. Holy Cliche, Batman!
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